"These are only a few of the many advantages of democracy. It is a pleasant form of government _in which equality reigns among unequal as well as among equal things_. Moreover, when a democratic State, athirst for liberty, is controlled by unprincipled cupbearers, who give it to drink of the pure wine of liberty and allow it to drink till it is drunken, then if its rulers do not show themselves complaisant and allow it to drink its fill, they are accused and overthrown under the pretext that they are traitors aspiring to an oligarchy; for the people prides itself on and loves the equality that confuses and will not distinguish between those who should rule and those who should obey. Is it any wonder that the spirit of licence, insubordination, and anarchy should invade everything, even the institution of the family? Fathers learn to treat their children as equals and are half afraid of them, while children neither fear nor respect their parents. All the citizens and residents and even strangers aspire to equal rights of citizenship. "Masters stand in awe of their disciples and treat them with the greatest consideration and are jeered at for their pains. Young men want to be on the same terms as their elders and betters, and old men ape the manners of the young, for fear of being thought morose and dictatorial. Observe too to what lengths of liberty and equality the relations between the sexes are carried. You would hardly believe how much freer domestic animals are there than elsewhere. It is proverbial that little lap-dogs are on the same footing as their mistresses, or as horses and asses; they walk about with their noses in the air and get out of nobody's way." Aristotle, faithless at this point to his favourite method of always contradicting Plato, has no particular liking, as we have said, for democracy. He does not spare it though he does not imitate Plato's scathing sarcasm. In the first place, Aristotle is frankly in favour of slavery, as was every ancient philosopher except perhaps Seneca; but he is more insistent on this point than anyone else, for he looks upon slavery, not as one of many foundations, but as the very foundation of society. He considers artisans as belonging to a higher estate but still as a class of "half-slaves." He asserts as an historical fact that only extreme and decadent democracies gave them rights of citizenship, and theoretically he maintains that no sound government would give them the franchise of the city. "Hence in ancient times, and among some nations, the working classes had no share in the government--a privilege which they only acquired under the extreme democracy.... Doubtless in ancient times and among some nations the artisan class were slaves or foreigners, and therefore the majority of them are so now. The best form of State will not admit them to citizenship...."